Flicking through the channels on the TV, there appears to be an abundance of wilderness survival programmes on the schedule these days. Whilst the skills the experts teach us are spot-on, in reality you have to think, how many times will I actually be in a position where I need to lick a frog? Extreme survival is one thing, but what would you do if you got lost whilst out on a hike, or your car broke down on the edge of a forest in the middle of nowhere? Your phone isn’t giving you a signal or the battery has died. What you need in these circumstances are basic, down to earth survival skills, which are precisely what we’re going to look at here.

So January is done, and thankfully we can stop talking about resolutions, or failure of such! Let’s turn our attention instead to something positive and useful we can achieve in 2016: to learn something new. We’ve been taking a look at skills it might be good to add to your repertoire if you’re an outdoor loving type, and courses you can go on to help you learn them. And here they are …

Thanks to the likes of Ray Mears and Bear Grylls, the whole theme of wilderness survival has been thrust into the limelight. The thing is, the art of learning bushcraft actually has massive benefits and lots of people are seeking out courses and ‘survival weekenders’ to allow them to take a step back from the frantic and complicated pace of life that we’re all too familiar with these days. Getting in tune with nature, the way life was ‘supposed’ to be, even just for a little while, can be pretty therapeutic. And there are a fair few other benefits too, as we discuss in this post.